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114 LADY NAIRNE AND HER SONGS.
was regarded with affection as well as reverence by her younger relatives and her servants, and impressed all who came in contact with her by the cordial grace of her manners, and the aristocratic and highly marked contour of her features, which in the bloom of youth had made her " the Flower of Strathearn." Her benevolence was unceasing and self-sacrificing, if not always wisely directed, and at one time she had all her family plate sold and the proceeds sent to Dr. Chalmers for the support of an industrial school for the poor. She lived during her later years at the old house of Gask, the honored guest of her nephew and his wife, and died in 1845 at the advanced age of seventy-one, in peace and tranquillity, and with only the gentle decay of her mental faculties and bodily forces. The year after her death her poems were collected and published under her own name, and the world for the first time knew to whom it was indebted for the songs which had impressed themselves upon the popular heart and become a distinct and notable part of the lyric poetry of Scotland.
As has been said, The Land o' the Leal reaches the highest note in its inspiration, perfection, and completeness, within the limits of its purpose, not only of Lady Nairne's work, but of all the lyric poetry of Scotland, but it was not the solitary example of a genius which had much of the versatility, |
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